No Master Ide Hdd Detected!!!! Helppp!!

Hi mailpup
sorry - I got the wrong post number. I agree he tried to boot using is old OS but finally did a new install. I just not sure how he did it.
If he checks the jumpers and they are OK I think it has to be the motherboard.

If you have two drives on one ribbon cable then one must be a master and the other must be a slave. You can set the drives to CS (cable select) which makes it automatic.
It is generally not a good idea to mix hard drives and optical drives on the same ribbon cable as this will slow down the hard drive.

Finally, please remove the DVD-RW from the cable and set the hard drive to master. Go buy another cable and attach it to your DVD-RW and then attach it to the second IDE header. The reason your motherboard is confused is your DVD-RW is set as master when your hard drive should be set to master and it should be alone or with another hard drive on that cable. An IDE cable can only have one master drive on it at a time, so when you set the hard drive as a second master you confused the motherboard. This is the situation I suspected a long time ago and had you answered my question a while back we could have resolved this by now. Naughty Naughty boy!

There should be an IDE 1 and an IDE 2 Slot.
the reason i asked if you had any other IDE drive installed was just because of that reason...

Even thou the Mobo shouldnt get confused so easely by having an optical
divre crossed with a storage device , it should work ''ok'' if you have your
jumpers set up the right way. But its not adviseable , due to the fact that
some detection issues that may occur.

Usually ''and i dont really know why'' , Mobo's tend to respond quicker if you have a hard drive marked as ''CS''.

But you Should try and follow cynders resumed instrucctions ,
get an extra cable and use it to connect your storage drives only.
Use the other one for Optical and Other IDE devices.

:suspiciou ***also , wen you get the cables , connect the Drives
Into the IDE 1 port of your Mobo , and the optical devices , set them into
IDE 2. After that ... get into your Bios and set it for optimised defaults.

that should do the trick.........
Remember to give us a follow up wen you're done...
Good Luck Mate**:wave: **